Paderewski: Piano Sonata & Variations

Approaching 150 years since the birth of Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860–1941) there remains a certain ambivalence about his legacy. Should he be judged primarily as a pianist or as a composer-pianist? The three works on this disc make the strongest possible case for the latter. The large-scale Piano Sonata in E flat minor, Op 21, is a powerful, turbulent work, showing the composer’s affinity with Rachmaninov in its passion and extreme technical difficulty, contrasting on occasion with writing of affecting simplicity.

The brilliant Jonathan Plowright is the ideal apologist for this music—a keen advocate of the Polish Romantic repertoire, possessed of the highest qualities of technique and interpretation.

CDA67562  79 minutes 17 seconds
‘Jonathan Plowright shines a powerful light on Paderewski … you have a pianist clearly in love with every bar of Paderewski's romantic rhetoric and it would be hard to imagine playing of greater ...
‘A distinctive and distinguished melodic voice shines through … everywhere there is always a strong sense of forward momentum … in Jonathan Plowright these works have a near-ideal interprete ...
‘It's all dense music, highly wrought, and Jonathan Plowright plays it quite superbly, with an enviable range of keyboard colour’ (The Guardian)